Other Terrible Elements Of Holiday Parties That Howie Mandel Should Host A Game Show About

Is there anything worse than when someone invites you to their home for what you think is going to be a nice holiday party with friends and/or family, and treats, and drinks, and talking, and then you realize what they’re inviting you to is actually a White Elephant party? Where no one is going to have any fun for, like, HOURS? And you feel obligated to go anyway? The answer is yes, obviously there are worse things, but — are there?! Howie Mandel is going to have a game show about that. That terrible game that no one likes. From EW:

In Howie Mandel’s White Elephant, six contestants will select one package from an assortment of wrapped gifts containing millions of dollars in prizes. Using strategy, luck, and good guessing, contestants will decide whether or not to steal prizes that have been previously revealed, or gamble that the item in their unopened box is worth more. The contestant with the least valuable prize at the end of every round is eliminated.

I mean, certainly this is a fine idea for a game show. It sounds like a game show and people will watch it and maybe they will even try to be on the game show if they are in the LA area on vacation, and everyone will have a good time. Everyone excluding us, obviously, because first of all we don’t like game shows in general and second of all especially not ones hosted by Howie Mandel that are WHITE ELEPHANT based! Right? That’s what WE think? All of us the same? Great. Because that’s the case, obviously we should play our OWN game about other terrible elements of holiday parties that Howie Mandel should host a game show about, if he loves terrible elements of parties so much!

A game where someone gives you a gift, and you don’t have a gift for them. And the gift they give you is pretty thoughtful and you can tell they figured you’d be getting them a gift, too, not because they NEED a gift but because that’s the kind of friendship they thought you guys had. And it is! You should’ve gotten them a gift!

A game where you took the last few of some sort of food item and then other people couldn’t have any, but then you can’t finish what you took and people notice.

A game where you drink too much.

A game where the party is so boring and you really want to leave, and then right before you make your exit the host says, “I’m just so glad you’re here,” and you can tell that they really mean it.

A game where your significant other’s ex is at the party and it’s like, ugh, why are they here? They don’t even live near here.

A game where you don’t have anyone to talk to.

A game where you’re hosting a party and invited a vegetarian who recently turned vegan and they’re like, “Are these cookies vegan?” And you have to be like, “Oh no, I’m sorry, I didn’t make any vegan cookies.” And they say, “Oh…that’s fine.” And you have to seem sorry, but in you’re head you’re thinking, “You probably shouldn’t expect people to make vegan cookies at their holiday parties for JUST you, YOU JERK.”

Howie Mandel makes ONE contestant wear a helmet and kneepads to a skating party, even though none of the other contestants have to wear them and it’s totally gonna make them look like a dork in front of their friends!

A game where you’re hosting a party and no one shows so you think ‘Great, no one likes me and I am the worst’ and eat half of the cake you made and drink a bottle of wine, but then people actually do come, just two hours late, because everyone you know apparently hates punctuality.

How about a game where you drink too much and you need to throw up, but there is a line for the bathroom and sink full of dishes in the kitchen and so your drunken logic tells you to run out of the apartment into a cold December night and kind of run halfway down the block, but all the physical activity just gives you a case of the dry heaves and so you decide to go back upstairs to the party, but the door locked behind you and no one is answering and now you don’t have a jacket and you were sweating from the running so now you are shivering and then when someone finally hears the buzzer they come downstairs and just when they open the door your body remembers to throw up and you do, right on the host?

A game where you get invited to a party you don’t really want to go to, but you have to because of friend/family obligations, so you try to drag along someone with you but they smartly decline, and you’re stuck at a horrible party filled with people you don’t like or care about. Then you have to make small talk and at least stick around for two hours so you don’t seem rude, even though it’s just a social obligation and in a way you’d rather be rude and leave so you never have to deal with any of these people again, but you’re not bold enough, so you just sit there in a corner until you eventually leave.

A game where you put car keys in a glass jar when you arrive. Then at the end of the night you fish out one set of keys and whoever those keys belong to is the person you’re spending the night with (sexually!). Twist is that every set of keys belong to Howie Mandel.

A game where you see how long you can insist that you’d really rather not dance before someone pulls you forcefully onto the dance-floor saying, “You’ll have fun! Don’t be embarrassed!” Bonus points if they don’t call you a party pooper when you shuffle away after the next song.

(Seriously, it’s not that I’m embarrassed. I just genuinely don’t enjoy dancing. And yes, people do still use the term ‘party pooper’.)

A game where a really cute girl invites you to a party and you’re sort of on the fence because, on the one hand, “hey, a cute girl invited me to a party. Good sign,” but you also don’t know anyone else there so are you just going to be, like, hanging onto her the whole, entire time and look desperate? But then, you’re like, “surely, I’ll meet some other cool people there and it’ll be alright,” but then you’re like “won’t I?” and then you realize you’re really just going for a chance to hook up with a cute girl which probably won’t even happen so you end up staying home watching Hulu.

A game where you hang out with your significant other’s relatives and they all clearly have their own family drama but you don’t really know the details but you can just tell it’s kinda awkward when people say certain things and usually at your own family’s holiday parties there’s lots more alcohol so you can at least have a drink but your significant other’s family doesn’t drink or if they do there’s like one bottle of crappy wine and so you have a glass but clearly you finish it before anyone else does and there’s only like half a glass left in the bottle and you feel like a real jerk for kind of needing that last half glass? Good game. I play every year.

A game where you go to a party reluctantly, but end up having a good time anyway, and meet some cool new people one of which tells you that he works on Sesame Street. You think that’s the coolest thing ever, and they give lots of fun details about working there and eventually you leave the party and think, “wow that was a fun party”.

Then about a week later you’re at the Met (museum) and you pay your entrance donation and the guy behind the counter is the guy that’s supposed to work on Sesame Street, and you say “Hey, didn’t I meet you at that party the other night?” and he says “No.”

Then after a day of wondering through the museum you see the guy again in the hall and he literally runs away from you.

But actually, I just thought up a neat idea for a game show / reality show hybrid on the Discovery Channel. Each week people play a cheaply-executed mock-up of an existing game show format for modest prizes. But the real draw is color commentary from a panel consisting of a psychologist, mathematician, and a Charlie Rose-caliber guest, like Martin Amis or some shit. They stop the action and discuss the probabilities and psychological tendencies inherent in the task at hand. Then, the contestant basically “wins” if the panel thinks he or she is smart and “loses” if they are gently mocked for blowing it.

This would totally work in a mythbusters sort of way, and I just invented it right here on Nerdgum.

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